Defining the Characteristics of an Outstanding Blog Editor

This is a guest post by Mark, the creator of StayOnSearch a Search & Social Media Blog and president of Search Creatively.

Having a blog editor can be a great asset in maintaining the quality and standards for your blog. For any blog that is looking to grow and add new bloggers to contribute content, there is going to come a time when you will need to hire a blog editor. However during the growing pains of a blog, the blog editor may also have various other responsibilities, until you are creating enough content to keep an editor busy full-time. Without having a system in place for quality assurance your content will suffer and you can start to lose loyal readers and traffic.

Let’s take a look at the different characteristics that make up a great blog editor.

Extremely Organized

The first and foremost characteristic is being organized. If your blog editor is unorganized it will show in the consistency of when new posts are launched, completed deadlines, and making sure there is a good variety of content being created. A blog editor who is organized will have content prepared well in advance of the actual launch date. They will also have a system in place to make sure there is no overlap in terms of the types of content each author is covering.

Pays Attention to Detail

Someone who pays close attention to detail is really what keeps high quality standards in place. As your blog starts to grow and you add new authors, they will not be familiar with things like post formatting, content approval process, and all of the other standards that each blog has. It will be important that the editor pays close attention to these new bloggers to make sure they are following the rules and guidelines that the blog has set.

Good Communication Skills

Creating a good communication system is very important. Many blogs will use internal communication tools like TeamBox and Campfire to allow all authors to talk to each other, share ideas, and collaborate. A blog editor must make sure each author knows their responsibilities, deadlines, and overall goals of the blog. In order for those objectives to be accomplished, they must be readily available, like to join in the internal discusses, and keeps everybody motivated.

Not Afraid to Get Dirty

There are going to be times when your blog is going to lack content. Maybe a blogger is out sick or something comes up and they are not able to write their regular column. It is the blog editors responsibility to get in there and fill in that spot so that your regular content keeps flowing. They should also not be afraid to tell a blogger if the quality of their content is not up to par or if things need to be edited.

Basic SEO Skills

A blog editor does not necessarily need to be a SEO guru, however they should know the basics. Being able to do some basic keyword research to tweak the post copy to appeal to a certain search phrase can help organic rankings. Also making sure the post has a good internal linking structure and uses keyword-rich anchor text is extremely important for larger blogs.

Is Socially Connected

A bonus which makes a great blog editor the ULTIMATE blog editor is someone who is socially connected in the industry. If you hire a blog editor who is well recognized in the industry, you not only gain their talent, you get access to their network.

Someone who has built credibility on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Digg, etc…and has the power to traffic additional traffic to the blog through their social profiles, is a huge plus!

This is a guest post by Mark, the creator of StayOnSearch a Search & Social Media Blog and president of Search Creatively, a full-service Internet Marketing Company located in Raleigh, North Carolina. He also contributes to many industry related blogs including Search Engine Journal and is active on Facebook and Twitter. Follow Mark @m_thompson.

Great list of qualities. I’ll be using some of that to write up the job description for my new editor. Unfortunately, we’re having to train the editors from the ground up and acting as the network person to open doors for them.